Drabble #2, Prompt: Broken
A/N: This strange drabble came to me in the middle of AP Music Theory class. (Btw, can you tell that I absolutely love Ginny in Slytherin colors?) I wasn't going to make this happy at all, but my beta loves fluff. So...)
She is standing by the fountain when he sees her, a vision of blood-red and pale legs and emerald green silk: bright, yet barely putting up a fight against the dreary, grey winter. Another slight wind picks up, tugging mournfully at the ends of her long red curls; she reaches out to grasp at the breeze as if it were something tangible, concrete, solid in a world of subdued malice and deceitful smiles.
He shifts uncomfortably and she stiffens imperceptibly in response, almost as if she has felt the muted thudding of a guilty heart half a courtyard away. Slowly, her slender hand drops and she turns methodically, hate alive and burning in bright amber eyes. He blinks once in surprise and when he has collected himself enough to direct a silvery-eyed stare of his own; her eyes are dull, flat, and lifeless again. There is no emotion in her silent gaze, merely faint distaste as she turns back to stare at the ornately carved fountain.
He is sure that the unadulterated hatred he caught in a glimpse has merely been hooded, masked by desperate determination and fiery hopelessness—
—She stretches out a pale finger to trace the image of a roaring lion carved into the center of the fountain's frieze. He stands stock still, frozen in icy shock as the feline carving stretches languorously, ignoring the blatant fact that it is not supposed to move, and begins to pace. The miniscule movements of her lion –lioness, he observes– brings a tiny, brilliant smile to her wan, tired face.
He scowls fiercely and turns away with an eerie, fluid grace. From the corner of his eye, he watches as she lifts her head and stares at him for a fraction of a second before returning her attention to the prowling stone lioness.
Reaching into his pocket for his watch –doesn't this girl have other things to do besides enchant a fountain– his fingers brush against two broken halves of a –her– wand. At his touch, the ends where it was cleanly snapped in half seem to awaken and a fury of gold sparks lance towards his fingertips, leaving blistering burns wherever they land. He wrenches his hand away with a loud curse and jerks his head up at the unexpected peals of crystalline laughter resounding from the petite girl half a courtyard, half a century of enmity away. The laughter dies away suddenly as his steely grey eyes lock onto hers and they stare at each other, platinum blonde and fiery redhead.
As he abruptly turns away, he realizes that the fiery hate she glares with hurts more than the burn of sparks against his fingers. Her bubbling laughter, however, is as good a balm as anything.